Would all new currencies be deflationary? BitCoin is set up like a physical thing... There was an initial gold rush, when BTC was just lying on the ground and could be economically mined by CPUs. Then that supply was exhausted, and you had to have some equipment to get it out of the surface of river beds, and had to be mined by GPU. Then you had to start major operations to locate any amount, so you had to use the dedicated mining processors. Initially, the value of gold was fairly minimal, it was just pretty. Then it started getting used for trade and demanded some investment by more people. And then it was recognized as intrinsically tied to a currency and entire business formed around it. If a thing you trade is actually harder and harder to come by, it becomes worth more per unit... But ONLY if people accept it in trade for anything.

So far, I am convinced that the BTC that you pay me with can only be used once by you, and that there isn't a trivial way for someone to inject unlimited BTC into the system. That's sufficient to represent debts to me. But I am perhaps a fool.

If prime numbers were currency... We know there are actually an unlimited number of them. There are some that are easy to "mine"... But then they require further and further investments of energy to "mine". Assuming a way to make sure only one person at a time can "own" a given prime number, it would work just fine for the functions of currency: Giving some fluidity to trade. That's all I use Bitcoin for. That's all I use USD for, too. My wealth is stored in either more tangible things (land, house, vehicles, etc) or far more intangible things (stock, 401k, etc).

I was interested in the technical workings of BitCoin and what the user experience was really like, but I just couldn't wrap my head around it without, you know, USING it. So I purchased about $40 worth of BitCoin via Western Union to one of the exchanges. At the time, that net me about 3 BTC. I started playing around with it, transferring it from my PC wallet to my phone wallet... getting an idea of how transfers went. It was an interesting concept "loading" my phone with BitCoin from my PC "safe" and then carrying that around with me. Then I started looking for things to do with it... I got on BitMit and purchased a few Steam games, some USB cables... All at a pretty hefty USD discount. And it was pretty neat just scanning a QR code and bam, payment sent. Granted the USB cables haven't arrived yet because they're shipping from China... But, whatever.

After actually SPENDING it, I decided to start accepting it at my GunBroker auctions. PayPal doesn't (knowingly) handle transactions related to firearms or firearm accessories, and a lot of buyers were interesting in this "BitCoin" thing. An instant way to transfer funds with almost no fees? Yes please. Unfortunately, most of them got stuck at obtaining it, much as I would be confused about how to obtain Euros if someone accepted only Euros. So far, no one has paid in BTC.

However, I am seeing more BTC accepting auctions out there, which corresponds to its value increasing. That's pretty neat.

I don't plan on keeping my money in BTC, as I don't trust it that fully, but I've gotten comfortable enough with getting money in and out of BTC-land that the transactions have become pretty fluid. Right now, my only concern is its volatility. It sucks to buy something for the $20 USD equivalent and then having it arrive when that $20 worth of BitCoin is now worth $50 USD. It works for me, though.

My rule for gun technology is generally... I'll use it when the military and/or police have been using it in active service for 10 or more years. Before then, I might not mind having it on any of my range-use-only guns, but never on a carry piece. My requirements are generally the same as a police department's, because if I ever have to use my gun it will be in defense of the same criminals the police encounter.

"Assault weapon" is a term that was made up by the legislature, and is, very generally, a semi automatic firearm capable of accepting "high capacity magazines", with two or more (or was it more than two...) features from a list of: barrel shroud, bayonet mount, pistol grip, collapsing stock, etc. Cosmetic features. "Assault weapon" is a bullshit term, but it DOES mean something now, since several states have defined them, and the federal government did as well.. "Assault rifle", however, was a term coined in the military to refer to small caliber fully automatic rifles.

An AR-15 of certain configurations is considered, legally, an "assault weapon" by several states and under the previous "Assault Weapons Ban". However, identically functioning and almost identically appearing AR-15's are not. "Assault weapon" is a buzzword made up by the anti-gun legislators because it puts fear into people. I even wanted to ban them before I actually got into the politics of firearms and understood what they were actually talking about. You do not need a Class 3 for an "assault weapon".

An AR-15 is NOT an assault rifle. It is not fully automatic. Legitimate assault rifles (A term no one uses correctly, and a term that really has no use anyway) require a Class 3 stamp because they are fully automatic, and you can't purchase one that was manufactured after 1986, so the few that are out there are $20,000+ guns. But that's ok because poor people commit all the crime, so goes the anti-gun logic.

You are way wrong on the machine gun. NO fully automatic firearms may be purchased by a civilian that were made after 1986. Period. No amount of paperwork fixes that. The class 3 stamp for full auto machine guns is necessary to purchase a pre-1986 machine gun. You can not purchase one made after 1986 (short of some weird stuff with being an FFL "sample dealer" or whatever)

The important thing since all of this is so complicated... Is that Columbine happened during the federal assault weapon and standard capacity magazine ban, and Connecticut still has an assault weapons ban. There was no detectable drop in violent or gun crime when the federal ban was put in place, and when it expired, violent crime has ever since been on the drop. Gun control has been tried. It does not work in the United States.

As someone who recently moved to the latest and greatest flagship Android phone, I can say... Android lacks a lot of what makes the Blackberry great. Anyone who actually uses their phone for email will really miss that fantastic keyboard. And now when I'm on call I have to wake up for every high severity email because the "best" email app, "Good", doesn't support any rules/filters like the Blackberry had built in. This Samsung phone is way more phone, but the Blackberry worked harder, and I miss it.

I've never seen so many people miss the point... Libertarianism isn't the idea that no one can ever do you wrong or that everything corporations due is right. It's more about people using their actual individual power to do something about it. In this case, he's not appealing to government action... He's informing the public about something that strikes him as unfair or wrong. Informing people is the first step to empowering them.

If you don't see a problem with ABC excluding him, fine. But don't assume that being a libertarian means you have a "Oh well, nothing I can/should do!" attitude. It just means your first reaction isn't "THERE SHOULD BE A LAW!!!!!" when it comes to cases like this.

I could commute to work every day. I even have a good bike to do it. It's not the helmet that prevents me from going to my IT job by bike, it's the sweat. Even commuting 2 miles in this hilly terrain results in me being a sweaty smelly mess. And that's the case even when I rode my bicycle 12 miles every day. Riding to the grocery store still busted me out into a nasty sweat. Hell, walking that 2 miles when it's 80 degrees even results in a sweat soaked button up shirt.

No. It would be more like if you peed 160 million gallons of piss into a 343 quintillion gallon glass. And then you removed 96 million gallons of piss.
Or you served me a 12 fl. oz cup of water, peed.000000000005598 fl oz. into the cup, and then removed.0000000000033588 fl oz. of your piss.

FTA: "...some kind of metaphor about America. Ruined by guns, kept alive by nonprofits, technology comes to the rescue? Sure, I think it works."

Riiiiiight. And you're THE editor of grist.org. Guns ruined America... You look at America, and chief amongst its problems are things that you think guns cause? Seriously? Well, welcome to my little corner of communist household!

Revelations 7:9
After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. 10 And they cried out in a loud voice:

For many of those who are trying to "make the apocalypse happen", the above outlines that it can't happen until every nation, tribe, people, and language has been reached by the word of God. Hence groups like the Joshua Project. They want to get the word of God to everyone. Once everyone has been exposed to the word of God, the apocalypse is possible. And the apocalypse is a good thing for believers, so hell yes, let's get on with it. I think the idea to them is... Apocalypse means I get to get off this rock and on to eternal happy-times, apocalypse can't happen until everyone has had a chance to accept God, I need to get God's word out there so that we can get on with the apocalypse.
It's all very Halo/Convenant to me. Activate the rings... divine winds will whisp us off to heaven... everyone else is fucked.

So you're alleging that despite the benefits agreed upon between the enlisted soldier and the U.S. government, the U.S. government widely and regularly breaks this contract and doesn't uphold its end of the bargain?

I'm not talking about what we think is right or what people think military families are owed. Nor do I think the system is broken and the government is evil when a family, military or not, runs into financial difficulty because of a failure to plan or a series of bad decisions.

Can you provide citations for not just government-ineptitude resulting in slow processing of a family's due payment, but willful disregard of the government's contractual obligations?

These things aren't generally just a flat lump sum payment. And a lot of it I'm sure military members can opt out of, probably for some negligible increase in base pay. Military families aren't left to twist in the wind when their service member dies. If you're father dies in military service, that shouldn't be treated like a winning Mega Millions lottery ticket. As in any job, if you're in the military it is up to you to ensure the financial security of your family. Many of the benefits are opt-in benefits like very cheap life insurance, matched savings plans, etc. If you are the type who doesn't save a dime, lives at the very edge of your means, and doesn't contribute to any kind of retirement/life insurance fund... you've screwed your families future over, not the U.S. Government. Even in the worst case scenario, families are at least compensated sufficiently (financially) for a few years. No amount of money is going to replace a lost loved one on an emotional scale, but seems to me that the U.S. military does a good job of making it plenty financially survivable.

Without all the emotional bull crap, and just cutting to the chase on how the safes fared? I know how important it is that (most of) my kids not be able to get to my guns. I don't need the 6 o' clock news version of this story.